ch Du Plessis and I divided
between us.

Verloren Vlei, with its smiling face, its dark history, and its wealth
of gold--for gold must be there in abundance--lies, I believe, to this
day still a secret and an unknown place. No doubt the pelicans and the
sand-grouse that first revealed its mysteries to Tobias Steenkamp and
ourselves, still visit it in time of drought--towards the driest period
of African winter. Some day, I suppose, its recesses will be made
accessible and its wealth laid bare. For others that day may come; but
for ourselves, neither Koenraad du Plessis nor I have any wish--having
prospered in other directions--to tempt fortune there again.

CHAPTER TWO.

A BUSHWOMAN'S ROMANCE.

Nakeesa, the Bushwoman, awoke just as dawn crept upon the silent veldt.
She belonged to that strange houseless race of wild hunters who roam the
waterless, illimitable deserts of the North Kalahari, subsisting
sometimes on game, at other times upon roots, reptiles, and berries.

It is needless to say that Nakeesa lay roofless. A little screen of
branches, interwoven with a friendly bush, sheltered her and her
sleeping husband and her child from the chill south wind that just now
began to move through the desert. It was June--midwinter--and the night
had been keen even to frostiness--so cold that Nakeesa had lain almost
_in_ the fire through the long hours. Her short hartebeest-skin cloak,
and the tiny skin petticoat about her loins, only half protected her
gaunt, three-quarter starved frame. The baby had nestled in the warmest
corner of her cloak, as near to the fire as might be without burning.
So close had Nakeesa lain to the pleasant warmth, that the shins of her
poor bony legs were burnt raw, as they had been for weeks past. Her
man, Sinikwe, lay scorched in exactly the same way.

You may never, indeed, see a Masarwa Bushman or woman who does not show
marks of fire-burn upon the nether limbs. Among the old people, if you
look close enough, you may see that their wrinkled breasts and bellies
are scorched and raw also.

Nakeesa sat up, pushed a half-burned stick or two into the smouldering
fire, and looked about her. Sinikwe lay still asleep. There was no
need to wake him, and, indeed, he would resent such interference. She
looked about her in a dull, rather hopeless way. There was no food in
the camp--if camp it could be called. Sinikwe had shot or snared no
meat of late. Drought lay upon the desert,